


Betwixt and Between

by Tigerine (sealink)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Gun Violence, M/M, Murder, Reincarnation, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-26
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2017-12-27 16:11:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/980961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sealink/pseuds/Tigerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spring 1940. With the so-called Phoney War over, Hitler gathers new strength to strike at Allied forces in the Low Countries and Belgium. Rivaille is a machinist and mechanic behind the Maginot Line in France. Increasingly aware of the German troops on the other side of the Line at Sarreguemines, he determines that he must escape the Continent in order to stand any chance of surviving the war that everyone fears is coming. With only a bicycle and small suitcase, he sets out on a journey. His destination? Calais and the white cliffs of Dover across the Channel. </p><p>(Based on an artistic prompt by hime1999.tumblr.com.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. War

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr: tigerine.tumblr.com  
> Tracked tags: #ww2 ereri, #tigerine, #fic: betwixt and between
> 
> You may have reached this fic through tumblr, where the #ereri and #riren tags experienced a bit of a kerfluffle over this proposed AU and potential insensitivity to the Jewish people. While I found the original art highly inspiring, I knew at once that I did not want to write the Holocaust fic that the art suggested. Instead, I wanted to do two things: create a meaningful story about Levi and Eren set against the backdrop of World War II, and explore philosophical problems in the context of a familiar medium (fanfiction). 
> 
> The name of this fic, Betwixt and Between, is one translated title of a work, L'Envers et l'endroit, by Albert Camus, a writer who lived in Algiers and France during the political unrest that led up to the declaration of war on Germany in 1939. Camus and his work has been very influential in my life and my way of thinking about the world, and he was influential in thinking in France in the short years leading up to our story. Using this fic as not only a way to talk about Levi and Eren (who are my OTP) but a way to talk about contemporary ideas and political philosophies of the time seemed like a natural fit. 
> 
> A NOTE ABOUT HISTORICAL ACCURACY: I have done my level best to tie this story to actual events that occurred when Germany invaded France. However, I expect I will make some mistakes with some technical specifications and troop movements and the like, as I am not an expert on the European Theater. If you spot these problems, please send me a message on tumblr to help me correct it.

Rivaille walked his bicycle along the road, his jacket draped across the small suitcase strapped on the rear rack. Liquidating his possessions had been slightly problematic, but he had never been one for material goods anyway. His room and board had taken up only part of his pay in Sarreguemines. Everything else, ten years of savings, he had converted to gold a few months back, when the first whispers of possible German advances into French territory began to circulate. Two small gold ingots from a goldsmith friendly to the family, or what was left of it. Two small pieces of insurance in case he could not outrun the German Army. If he played it right, two chances at life when all else was lost.

He felt them in the waistband of his pants, one on each side of his braces, sewn into the lining of the pants. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use them. They would go a long way toward starting a new life, someplace far from this insanity. The murderous swath cut by the Third Reich through Poland had been notoriously bloody. There were stories of people, _civilians_ , being shot and killed, their homes looted, even women and children being left to the mercy of the German soldiers.

Rivaille shivered in spite of the warm spring day.

The fields he passed were small, the cottages set back from the road. With the barley crop going in, he might be able to find an odd job repairing a tractor or machining a new piece of harness. Sometimes they gave him a crust of bread and let him sleep in their barns in exchange for work splitting wood or managing the plow. The rest of the time, he slept rough.

He avoided the military when he could, but they were good sources of work for a machinist who could do some mechanical repairs. There never seemed to be enough engineers to keep the Maginot Line intact, so he had been able to work his way up the northeastern border of France, moving from _ouvrage_ to _cloche_ , his skill with a lathe and a wrench more than enough to allow him to pass through the camps. He repaired everything from bolts to chair legs. He wasn’t even asked for his card much—not that the one he would have shown them would be his actual name. No, the one he passed around was just a false name, obtained through bribery. His real identity card was tucked behind the lining of his suitcase, waiting for the shores of England.

The encampments of French reserves in Lorraine huddled near the terminus of the Maginot Line waited for a frontal German assault, but even Rivaille could tell that the German armies would have to subject themselves to great risk to throw themselves against such deep fortifications.  The Germans were too clever by half to fall upon such a perfectly placed sword.  That left only a few options: aerial bombardment, a massive force that would move through the Maginot Line or a naval blockade and siege. _All of those are bad for me._ _The only option is not to be there when they come._

Overhead, several aircraft droned north. Rivaille’s brow knotted together. The reconnaissance flights were becoming more and more frequent.

Occasionally he would meet with someone on the road, but they all had the grim, set mouths of a people holding their breath, hoping against the aggression that seemed inevitable. No one this far north was reassured by the presence of the Maginot Line. Even the hasty construction of additional fortifications along the border with Belgium did not set people at ease with growing German power. It had not been true ten years ago and it was not true now that the Germans had been milling about on the other side of the Maginot Line for more than half the past year. Perhaps their armies were comfortable in this never-ending _drôle de guerre_ , but the French people, already feeling the strain of economic and political strife, were not.

Slinging his leg on the other side of the bicycle, Rivaille began to ride again. His backside already ached from cycling over the rough roads, but the time spent walking had helped. The next town was not far, and the infantry would not be much further after that; they always welcomed him and his thin, dexterous hands. He abhorred the trigger mechanisms he repaired, the easy discussion of war in the camps, but their francs were just as good as anyone else’s, and they only had to last him to Calais. Besides, he could check in with the wire to see if there was news.

 _Margut._ The signpost was faded; no one had bothered to paint it in years, the kilometers to the Belgian border even more neglected than the town’s name. The rest of the village was quiet. One grocer in the town square, one shop for cheese and a butcher. A small fountain, but no children to play around it. Rivaille tucked his bicycle against the storefront of the cheesemonger and stepped in. He bought a hunk of cheese from the old man, who kindly brought out one of the loaves of bread his wife had made that morning, waving away Rivaille’s protestations.  She hung around the back of the shop, poking her head in occasionally.

“Are you traveling far?”

“Pardon?” Rivaille said absently, breaking apart the bread and nearly sighing with delight as he pushed it into one corner of his mouth.

“Forgive me, _monsieur_ , but I have not seen you here before, and your trousers are caked with dirt.” The round-face man smiled, his brown eyes softening. “Are you going to ride that bicycle all the way to Paris?”

Paris. _No, I would not be going back there_. Rivaille sized the man up. Sandy blond hair, late fifties, rugged face. He was fat in addition to being large, with great strong forearms. His shop was clean, well-swept, and the cheese was creamy and salty. I can share some of myself with him.

“Calais,” Rivaille said around a mouthful of food.

“Calais! You have quite a way yet to go, monsieur….” The end of his sentence asked the question, but the answer thus earned…. not a truthful one. Not yet. And perhaps never.

Rivaille swallowed hard and offered his hand. “Beauchard. ” The cheesemonger wiped his hand against a flour-sack towel and gripped his hand firmly. “Phillippe Beauchard.”

“Arnaud,” the cheesemonger replied, shaking Rivaille’s hand warmly. He turned to his wife, a handsome woman with a square jaw and dark eyes. “This is my wife, Simone.”

Rivaille reached to take her hand, bowing slightly. “Madame.”  She blushed and bustled back into the rear of the shop, one hand pressed to the collar of her dress.

“I don’t suppose there’s a wire office here,” Rivaille asked, popping another crumb of cheese into his mouth.

“No, but the bar down the road has a radio.” Simone reappeared, a cup of water in her hand and a small jug in the other. Rivaille gulped it down greedily.  She watched, her hands folded in her apron.  Arnaud leaned against the low counter. “Are you looking for news?”

Rivaille nodded slowly, his grey eyes moving back and forth between Arnaud and Simone. Their faces were suddenly serious. What had been a light lunch and the beginning of an easy conversation was already chilled by the spectre of war.

“I don’t think we have any,” Arnaud said, sighing deeply. “The post has already come for the day. Unless something major happens,” he said, the implications clear, “we will not know.”  

Rivaille nodded again, looking thoughtful.

“Why are you headed to Calais?”

“My mother has taken sick.” Rivaille sucked down more water; he hadn’t realized how thirsty he was until he’d started drinking.

“Ah, that’s a shame. And at such a bad time…”

“Yeah,” Rivaille said, the muscles in his jaw tightening.  He drained the last of the water and tried to put on a smile, managing something like a helpless grimace. The story about his mother was a flat-out-lie. His mother had died of typhoid eight years ago. But it kept people from prying too deeply into his affairs. For someone like him, that kept them both safe.

“If you’re looking for a room, we could put you up for the night,” Arnaud offered as Rivaille swept crumbs from his bread into his hand with the intension of tossing them out once he was outdoors. He opened the door and tossed them into the street, nearly dusting a child that was running past. Rivaille turned to watch the little scamp race out of the town square before turned back to Arnaud.

“I don’t suppose I have much of a choice,” he said with a small smile. It’s not like there’s a hotel anywhere around here, is there?

Arnaud grinned and seemed about to comment further when another urchin ran through the streets, all arms and legs. He closed his mouth with a snap and came out from behind the counter to shoulder into the doorframe with Rivaille.

Rivaille’s attention was up the street, where a crowd was gathering in the doorway of the bar. He and Arnaud briefly exchanged glances before stepping out and hurrying toward the knot of men pushing their way into the tavern. Rivaille could hear the hiss and crackle of the radio, volume dial all the way up, the comforting and authoritative voice of the radio announcer drawn and grim. The crowd droned, vacillating between calls for silence and calls for information to be repeated.

Arnaud tapped a patron on the shoulder as he pushed his way out of the little tavern. “What is it, Pierre?”

The other man had a haunted look in his eyes; he didn’t seem to notice Rivaille’s presence at all. He shook his head, licking his lips nervously. “It’s Maastricht. They’ve got Maastricht.”


	2. Sedan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shaken by the revelation that Germany has finally made its move against the Allied forces, Rivaille steels his resolve and continues north.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tracked tags: #fic: betwixt and between, #tigerine, #ww2 ereri  
> my tumblr: tigerine.tumblr.com
> 
> This chapter has been hard to write, because I am always thinking of the next chapter! The next chapter will prove to be a big one for Rivaille, so the chapter length will probably jump dramatically. I hope this chapter is satisfactory~

“Maastricht?!” Rivaille grabbed the man’s shirtfront, hauling him closer. His eyes sharpened to beady points, lit with desperation. _It can’t have happened already! I can’t have been too slow!_ They were already in the Netherlands, practically knocking down Belgium’s door, and once they were done there, they would turn south and carve a path of wanton destruction out of the hilly French countryside, marching to Paris on a road of bones.

“That’s what the radio said. Antwerp may be next. Nothing is very clear.”  Pierre slapped Rivaille’s hands away from his shirtfront. His eyes were already beginning to change from the blankness of shock to shifty suspicion. “Friend of yours, Arnaud?”

“He’s a boarder with us for the night.” The bigger man laid a hand on Rivaille’s shoulder.

Rivaille watched Pierre straighten his collar and then shove his hands in his pockets and walk briskly down the lane.

“Come back to the house, Philippe,” Arnaud said, turning to walk back to his shop. Rivaille scowled at the crowd, which was now simply listening to the radio quietly, their faces expressionless. He turned to follow Arnaud.

“Bring that in the back,” Arnaud said, gesturing to Rivaille’s bicycle.  Rivaille agreed without further hesitation.  His mind whirled. This might be the last bed he would sleep in for a while. It would take the Germans a week to get through the Netherlands and Belgium. Rivaille wheeled his bicycle back around the back of the shop, past separation tanks and the cheese-making room.  His suitcase barely registered as weight in his hands; the news of war, that war was here, weighed him down more than any material goods.

The narrow staircase that clung to the back of the shop invited him up, and Rivaille was welcomed into their home. It was a strange thing, being welcomed after being on your own for so long. Simone showed him the small room that overlooked the town square and the W.C. When Rivaille returned to the common room, Arnaud was seated at the large kitchen table, a jug and two glasses in front of him.  

“I think we both need a drink.”

Rivaille sat in one of the wooden chairs next to Arnaud, and ran a thumb under his braces while Arnaud poured. The toast was quiet, without any of the customary joy.

“So,” Arnaud said, leaning forward on his forearms, the table creaking under his weight, “your mother is not in Calais, is she?”

Rivaille froze. Simone kept working at the low counter next to the drainboard sink. Arnaud sipped from the small glass and then placed it with forefinger and thumb back on the table. “Is she?” he repeated.

“I don’t know what—“

“A man doesn’t get angry like that about not being able to see his mother,” Arnaud said. “A man gets angry like that when he has no way out of a terrible situation.”  Arnaud’s face was serious, but not stern. “I imagine you have your reasons for traveling right now, and I imagine that they’re much the same reason anyone would travel right now.”

Rivaille sighed heavily, finally taking a drink. “This was the best possible solution.”

Arnaud looked at him for a long moment and then leaned up off the table. He washed his meaty hands together. “You look young, so you probably don’t remember the Great War.”

“On the contr—“

“I wasn’t at Verdun, but my best friend was. He was hit by a shell. One half of him was in the trench, the other half not.” He took a mouthful of wine, wetting the inside of his mouth and gulping it down. “War changes you,” he said, nodding at his wine glass. “I saw things no man should ever see. So I understand why you’re running away from it.” Another swill of wine. “I don’t blame you. I imagine if the _gendarmes_ asked for your card now it would say ‘Philippe Beauchard’ on it. What does the other one say?”

Rivaille watched Arnaud over the rim of his wine glass, and the older man took his hesitation and nodded slowly. “Well, I won’t pry into it then. We all have our reasons for changing our names.”

“You changed your name?” Rivaille couldn’t hide a moment of incredulity.

“I said war changes you.” Arnaud looked over his shoulder at Simone, who was stirring a pot of something that smelled amazing. “I went to war as one man and came back as another.”

Rivaille took this in, turning it over in his mind. “I’m a machinist and mechanic,” he said at last. “I lived in Sarreguemines for ten years, working on river cruisers and the Line.”

“And why would a machinist need to run from war?” Arnaud said, at last.

“I wasn’t always a machinist.”

Arnaud’s eyebrows lifted and the corners of his mouth drew down and he nodded in understanding. “We are not so different after all.”  His eyes drifted to Simone again. She was finishing the meal, the clattering of dishes from the cabinets and the flurry of activity that followed with turning off the stove and preparing side dishes providing enough cover for Rivaille’s next words.

“Then you understand that the less you know about me, the better. I don’t want to endanger your family or the life you have here.”

Arnaud smiled, at first weakly, and then with conviction, his hazel eyes warm and direct. “I think, if this were a different time, if we were not at war,” he leaned back as Simone put a plate of bread and soft cheese on the table, “that you and I might be good friends, Philippe.”

“Perhaps the war will not last long,” Rivaille said out loud. Simone delivered their plates, a simple, hearty stew with potatoes and root vegetables.

Arnaud’s face darkened. “If it does not last long, then it will be because we have given up.” 

 ***

Although Rivaille woke at dawn the next morning, Arnaud and Simone were already gone.  After a short, lukewarm shower, he dressed, his fingers instinctively feeling for the heft of the two gold ingots in his waistband, satisfied by their weight. A bundle lay on the table, with a note written in a simple, direct hand:

_Beauchard—_

_2 nd army (Fr.) at Sedan. Godspeed._

_Arnaud._

Rivaille ran his finger along the edge of the paper, thoughtful. The 2nd Army didn’t have the best reputation, but his options were limited to facing the German army alone or marching in the shadow of a French army with the whores and opportunists. There were worse things.

A glance in the bundle confirmed what he thought:  a boule, a hunk of cheese, some chocolate and a tin of fish; the kind of rations a traveler—or a soldier—might need. After a moment, Rivaille searched about for a pen and left a reply scratched at the bottom of the note:

                           _Merci.  –Rivaille._

Time was short. If he moved fast, he might be able to slide in behind the army as they marched for Paris. The turbulent wake of the first wave of soldiers would hopefully provide him the cover he needed to make it to Calais.  

The air traffic overhead hadn’t increased much at all; if anything, Rivaille thought the silence from the skies to be more ominous than the noise. The roads themselves were quite busy; he passed several families on foot and piled together in rough farm vehicles, what they could manage of their worldly possessions packed in with them. They headed south, away from the battles sure to come, into the relative safety of the southern _d_ _épartements_.  

For Rivaille, each passing family was a reminder of what he had not known in years, the simple satisfaction and solitude of a job well done his only source of comfort. He was good at what he did, and he was valued for it, but a wall existed between his life and the lives of those around him. Living and working in Sarreguemines had given him ample time to come to terms with the fact that he would die alone.

He was of two minds on the issue. On one hand, dying alone sounded… well, terrible. Who would take care of his body? Would he be dumped in a pauper’s grave? Burned with the garbage? Or now, as the possibility prevented itself, left to rot on a battlefield?

The other half of his mind found some comfort in the fact that this life was his own life. For ten years he had lived it for no one else but himself, working as he pleased, seeking out the small pleasures in life. Would his life, this one life, be so bad if it was all he got? Did he not enjoy sunrises and the calling of birds in spring? Could simple pleasures of everyday life compare to one lived in expectation of divine ecstasy? Did a life have to be lived for God for it to be a good life?

That last question still had no answer for him, not after ten years, not after fifteen years.  But he saw plenty of people with rosaries wound around their wrists and envied them their conviction right up until the walls of Sedan. It was early afternoon on the twelfth of May, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred forty, and the hills in the Ardennes began to hum.


	3. Panzer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rivaille's arrival in Sedan coincides with the arrival of the 2nd German Panzer division.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My tumblr: tigerine.tumblr.com  
> Tracked tags: #fic: betwixt and between, #tigerine, #ww2 ereri, #tourmalineundine
> 
> Thank you for being so patient while I wrote this. Don't be afraid to send me asks, I love hearing from you!

Rivaille careened into the empty streets of Sedan as the light began to turn gold in the afternoon.  More than a few stragglers stared at him as he coasted into the town, his feet dangling down past the pedals.  Already he saw the signs of abandonment in the town: doors left unlatched, windows boarded up.  The jangling of his bicycle’s worn shocks echoed off the buildings that lined the narrow lanes. A barking dog was quickly silenced. If there were people here, they kept quiet.

The warehouses near the riverside were even more deserted than the shopkeeper’s lanes. No one had made eye contact with him since entering the town and it had been at least five minutes since he’d seen a person walking anywhere. Not a welcoming environment for a stranger. He couldn’t hope for another friendly face like Arnaud’s.

The second-to-last door on the street was worn and blue, with a padlock over it, but upon closer inspection, the lock had failed to catch. Rivaille slid his fingers around the lock casing; he flipped it around the shackle and watched it fall open.  Here was where he had to make the decision, then. Press on out of town and risk being caught on the road by the army or get caught up by the Germans on purpose and try to make it out behind the advancing front of the war.

Getting caught on the road almost surely meant death. The headlines from Poland flashed through his mind, burned in black and white, and he was lifting the lock out of the hasp before he knew what came over him. _Calm down. At least check to see if anyone’s looking._

But the street was as desolate as before, and the windows above him were dark and empty.  He could not get his bicycle inside fast enough.

The warehouse was an old carriage house that had been converted, probably sometime around the turn of the century.  Stacks of wooden crates lined the walls to just chest height; an oil spot darkened an open space in the stone floor.  Rivaille wheeled his bicycle behind them, situating it just out of sight. Across the work floor was a small door, barely ajar, a thin scrap of sackcloth over the dusty window. He eased it open.

The office was in a state of chaos. Ledgers had fallen on the floor; one of the neatly-printed long pages had a bootprint on it. The drawers to the filing cabinet were half-open, keys still in the lock. He looked behind the door, finding a small cot with a flat floursack pillow below a small porthole-style window, brown with grime. He pulled it open, standing on the cot and looking out east into a small alley. It was off this glass and these walls that he heard the Ardennes Forest issue a strange hum. As he strained to hear it, the hum slowly became the never-ending rapid series of chugging clanks, and the whine of diesel engines.

Rivaille cursed and then cursed again, his epithets echoing lamely off the walls of the office.  He raised his hand to his mouth, pressing his fingers against his lips until his nail beds were white. The Germans were not sweeping down from Maastricht and the siege of Brussels. They’d come through the winding, hilly terrain of the Ardennes, between the fortifications at the Belgian border and the end of the Maginot Line. They were poised to burst through the French defenses where they were weakest: Sedan.

He slammed the window shut, latching it with shaking fingers. He was trapped here until they moved through. _How did they get here so fast?! Calm down. Calm down and THINK!_

Why hadn’t they started bombing? They needed Sedan, or they’d have started bombing the 2nd French army hours ago. They needed Sedan because… _the river_. They needed a bridgehead. That’s how they’d gotten here so fast. That’s why he could hear them: the Panzer divisions were roaring into France, with all their mechanics and infantry behind them. They intended to simply mow down French forces with superior armor and firepower, but they needed a bridgehead to get their _panzer_ across the Meuse into the French countryside.

Rivaille leaned against the wall, sliding down it onto the cot, dizzy with his realizations. _What should I do? What could I do?_

Nothing.

The answer came to him coldly. He could do nothing.

He could not outrun tanks on his bicycle, even if he pedaled as fast as he could. He could not fight them or resist without being killed, or worse, captured.

His only option left was to avoid detection at all. The Wehrmacht couldn’t capture what it didn’t know about. He ran a hand through his hair, letting out a shuddery breath. _Avoid detection. Lay low. Travel by night if you travel at all._

After several long moments, he got up and went out to the workfloor, his shoes loud in the quiet. _Avoid detection._   He walked to his bicycle, sliding it up behind crates, jamming it as far back behind the boxes as he could, taking a little of Arnaud’s bread and cheese out of his suitcase and setting them aside.

What else?  _Avoid detection_.

He went back in the office and closed the door, pulling the curtain over it and pushing a filing cabinet halfway in front of it. The papers strewn across the floor slid under his shoes. He looked down at them, fighting the urge to pick them up, to straighten the office. _Lay low. Conserve energy. You don’t have much food and who knows when you will get more._

He looked at the cot and its pillow dubiously before deciding that sleep was the best way to pass the time. He could get up after dark and assess the situation then, see if it was safe to leave town. He bolted down the bread and cheese and lay down with his knees tucked up, facing the door. He didn’t think sleep would come—his foot bounced nervously off the back edge of the cot—but even in the burnishing light of afternoon, exhaustion overcame him and he slept.

**xXx**

It was massive, this giant. It towered over the houses, easily two stories taller than the nearest roof.  It leered at him with a blank stare and rictus grin, large flat teeth shining with saliva. He floated— _floated_ —out of the way of its grasping hands, and seemed to fly effortlessly away from harm’s reach. Rivaille looked down and in his hand were swords, swords with handles like bicycle brakes and edges like razors. The giant bellowed and Rivaille’s body reacted almost without conscious thought. The swords fit in his hands like they were made for him, and he pressed his fingers against the trigger, alighting on a rooftop.

Someone called to him, knew his name, but their face was unknown to him, or he couldn’t see it, in his dream, as if petroleum jelly had been smeared over his eyes. They were watery and indistinct and the dream avoided giving them any glances at all. Always, it centered on the giant.

“Captain!”

A woman’s voice, young. It came from behind him? With horror, he found his comrades laying on the rooftops, their bodies red and broken, smeared across the tiles. He knew these people, and hot rage stained his cheeks even here, in the dream.

“Captain!”

A man’s voice, young. No, it was several voices. They called to him, their voices shrill with alarm. He turned to find the giant closing in on him—

**xXx**

The sound of the carriage house door being forced open sounded like a cannon in the night. Rivaille was instantly awake, the strange terror of his dream replaced with the unsettling sensation of his heart in his throat.  There was a light sweeping around the workfloor.  How many were there? He sat up, inching behind the door. He had no weapon, but maybe he wouldn’t need one.

“Look in there.”  The unfamiliar sound of German hit his ears, and even though Rivaille had guessed it might be coming, his stomach plummeted.

The filing cabinet was only half in front of the door; they’d be able to open it wide enough to see what they needed to see: an abandoned office with no one in it. No one at all.

The knob turned and the door shuddered open.  A hand holding a small box-shaped flashlight swept in, pushing the beam around the room.  The soldier stepped across the threshold, shouldering the door open. “It’s a mess in here.” 

_So there are two of them. Could I take both of them? No, they’re probably armed. Just don’t move. Lay low. Avoid detection._

“Hey, I’ve got something over here—“

“What?” The soldier in the doorway turned, his flashlight leaving the room. Rivaille didn’t dare to breathe.

“A bicycle, with a suitcase,” the other voice replied.

“A suitcase,” the soldier in the doorway repeated. Rivaille could hear the smirk in his voice. “I should check this office real well then.”

“Don’t be rash,” the other voice cautioned.

“Where’s your sense of national pride, Dieter?” the soldier in the doorway responded, leaning against the door. The filing cabinet screeched as it slid across the floor and the soldier chuckled. “Looks like someone’s in here,” he said, lower. “There’s something behind the door.”

“Be careful.”

“I’m always careful,” the answer came, and suddenly Rivaille was blinded by the bright light of the hand-torch.

The German’s hands were strong; they closed around his wrists like iron bands. The flashlight fell to the cot, face down. “I got something, Dieter,” the soldier grunted.

Dieter inched into the room, his flashlight sweeping over the room and landing on Rivaille’s terrified face. He inched closer, peering into his captive’s face. “A man.”

“What, are you sure?”

“The Adam’s apple, you idiot.”

Rivaille held still, tears welling up in his eyes and threatening to spill down his cheeks. He looked back and forth between the two soldiers. Dieter turned his flashlight towards his companion. “What are you going to do?”

The man holding Rivaille’s wrists shrugged. In the soft reflected light of his torch on the wall, he looked almost handsome. “I suppose it doesn’t matter if it’s a man or a woman. Gag him.”

“What? Why?”

“Spoils of war.”

Panic was written on Dieter’s face, but he sounded more irritated than panicked. “But what if—“

“He’s not going to tell anyone.” And the man holding Rivaille’s wrists leered at him and shook him to emphasize his point. “Are you?”

Rivaille knew enough German from living in a border town to recognize that things were about to go very, very wrong. When his assailant shook his wrists, Rivaille broke one of them free and drove his fist into the bridge of the man’s nose.

It was not enough to break it. And in fact, all Rivaille had done was make him angry.

Dieter came to the soldier’s aid, pulling Rivaille’s arms behind him. Rivaille kicked and snapped at them, but they were bigger and stronger than he was.  His braces were pulled from their buttons and they used them to tie his wrists together.

“Don’t you dare touch me! I’ll kill you!” Rivaille howled before a clean handkerchief was balled up and shoved in his mouth.

“I think I’ve got him handled now,” the soldier said, avoiding Rivaille’s furious kicks and pressing him down into the cot.

“Just… be quick, Hans. We don’t have a lot of time before we’re due back at camp.”

“Oh, I’ll be quick,” Hans replied. “Just keep a lookout.”  When Dieter was gone, Hans shoved his hand roughly into the back of Rivaille’s trousers and pulled them down. Rivaille’s screech was muffled by the gag.

“What do we have here?”

Hans’ voice held a new, quiet fascination and Rivaille realized with fresh horror that the soldier had felt the gold ingots sewn into the waistband.

“You got something else for me in here, pretty?” Hans reached down and picked up Rivaille’s head by the hair. “Do you?”

Rivaille nodded enthusiastically and whimpered, wincing as he pulled his hair from Hans’ fist. Hans tugged the handkerchief out of Rivaille’s mouth, watching Rivaille lick his lips to wet them. “It’s gold,” Rivaille panted in broken German. “Take it. Take it and leave me.”

“Gold?”

“Yes, gold. It’s yours if you just leave me alone!”

Surely looting pigs like these, the opportunists of war, wouldn’t pass up an offer like this? The smile that spread across Hans’ face made Rivaille’s blood run cold. It was so normal. So pleasant. As if someone had said he might have extra dessert.

“I think I’ll have this _and_ that,” he purred, tugging on Rivaille’s undershorts, glaring at him when he screamed. Hans shoved the wadded gag back into Rivaille’s mouth and began to unbuckle his belt, his knee in the smaller man’s back.

A commotion out on the workfloor stilled his hands. He looked over his shoulder at the office door. A second light had appeared in the carriage house.

“What’s going on?” A third voice, German.

Rivaille weighed his options. If he made a commotion, he might be rescued, or he might have just added another person to violate him. He made his choice in an instant, jamming his foot against the filing cabinet. It slid across the floor with a bone-chilling squeal.

Hans whirled on the man underneath him on the cot. His fist smashed into Rivaille’s jaw and then again into his temple.  

“Are you out of your mind?” The third German voice again, this time from a soldier that stood in the doorway.

Hans looked up, suddenly caught in the beam of a Nazi flashlight. “It’s not—“

The new soldier was dark-haired, broad-shouldered, and stood as if under military inspection. “This is conduct unbecoming of the Wehrmacht,” he said angrily. “You Panzer division think you can get away with this kind of behavior? Just do whatever suits your—“

And he stopped mid-sentence. His light had moved to Rivaille, surveying the turpitude Hans had been about to embrace, and found a terrified Frenchman, his hands bound behind his back, shirt soaked in cold sweat, gagging against the dryness of the fabric in his mouth.

The new soldier crossed the office in two steps, shoving Hans off the cot and leaning to inspect Rivaille more closely. He pulled the handkerchief out of Rivaille’s mouth and lifted his chin. The soldier’s eyes, a brilliant green, widened.  

“You—! This man—!” He turned on Hans, who lifted his hands in supplication.

The new soldier’s fingers were quick, unbuckling the leather pouch at his belt. His pistol was sleek, black, and had likely never been fired.

The flash of the muzzle lit the room like a bolt of lightning. The report of the gun was deafening in the office, but the new soldier didn’t seem to care. Hans slumped back on the floor, a pool of black spreading under his head.  

Another commotion out on the workfloor and more footsteps. Dieter appeared in the doorway and the killer grabbed him by his black shirtfront, throwing him to the ground.  The gun muzzle flashed again and Rivaille sat back against the cot, unable to look away from the murderer. The soldier holstered his sidearm and stepped toward him.

“Are you okay?” He spoke first in German and then in heavily-accented French, his voice panicked, cracking. His hands shook against Rivaille’s wrists as he unwound the braces.

More booted footsteps sounded on the workfloor. “Eren?! We heard shots!”

“I’m in here!”

Two more soldiers came in, adding their flashlights. The office was almost well-lit now, with all the reflected light.

“Mind the bodies,” Eren spat angrily.

“Jesus Christ…” The tall one, blond with a strong jaw, looked at Dieter’s body solemnly. The shorter one, a man with a broad face and short black hair, shouldered his way in.

“What the fuck, Eren! These are Panzer—“

“They were going to force themselves on him!”

Rivaille looked from the new soldiers to Eren’s face. In the soft light, his terrible anger made harsh shadows on his face, and his eyes seemed almost lit from within.

“Him! The Captain!”

Rivaille looked at Eren in horror. “No, there’s been some mistake—“

But the two other soldiers approached him, their flashlights on him in a moment, blinding him. The faces of the two new soldiers beheld him with something like wonder and disbelief. “My God, Eren, are you sure?”

Their eyes wandered over him, and Rivaille squirmed, pulling up his trousers. He was still very upset and confused. The searching eyes of the two new soldiers appraised him. It was two more people between him and freedom. They’d called him Captain. Captain… like….

“Of course I’m sure. Just look at him!” Eren was in tears now, upset and enraged, fuming at the two dead men on the floor. He kicked one of them, an incoherent sound spilling from his mouth, and then turned back to Rivaille, dropping to his knees in front of the cot.  His shoulders shook as he took one of Rivaille’s slender hands in both of his.

“Captain Levi!” Eren pressed his forehead to the back of Rivaille’s hand and Rivaille tried not to recoil at the sensation of hot tears falling on his fingers.  “Captain!”


End file.
